3rd. The Committee met, and I did make shift to answer them better than I expected. Sir W. Batten, Lord Brouncker, W. Pen, come in, but presently went out; and J. Minnes come in, and said two or three words from the purpose but to do hurt; so away he went also, and left me all the morning with them alone to stand or fall. And it ended with good peace, and much seeming satisfaction; but I find them wise and reserved, and instructed to hit all our blots.

4th. To Sir G. Carteret, and there discoursed much of the want of money, and our being designed for destruction. How the King hath lost his power, by submitting himself to this way of examining his accounts, and is become but as a private man. He says the King is troubled at it, but they talk an entry⁶⁸ shall be made; that it is not to be brought into example; that the King must, if they do not agree presently, make them a courageous speech, which he says he may do (the City of London being now burned, and himself master of an army) better than any prince before him.

5th. The Sub-committee have made their report to the Grand Committee, and in pretty kind terms. Captain Cocke told me of a wild motion made in the House of Lords by the Duke of Buckingham, for all men that have cheated the King to be declared traitors and felons; and that my Lord Sandwich was named. Mr Kirton’s kinsman, my bookseller, come in my way; and so I am told by him that Mr Kirton is utterly undone, and made 2 or £3000 worse than nothing, from being worth 7 or £8000. That the goods laid in the Churchyard fired through the windows those in St Fayth’s church; and those coming to the warehouses’ doors fired them, and burned all the books and the pillars of the church, so as the roof falling down, broke quite down; which it did not do in the other places of the church, which is alike pillared, (which I knew not before;) but being not burned, they stood still. He do believe there is above £150,000 of books burned; all the great booksellers almost undone: not only these, but their warehouses at their Hall and under Christ-church, and elsewhere, being all burned. A great want thereof there will be of books, specially Latin books and foreign books; and, among other, the Polyglottes and new Bible, which he believes will be presently worth £40 a-piece.

6th. Sir W. Coventry and I discoursed of, among others, our sad condition by want of a Controller; and it was his words, that he believes, besides all the shame and trouble he⁶⁹ hath brought on the office, the King had better have given £100,000 than ever have had him there. He did discourse about some of these discontented Parliament-men, and says that Birch is a false rogue, but that Garraway is a man that hath not been well used by the Court, though very stout to death, and hath suffered all that is possible for the King from the beginning. But discontented as he is, yet he never knew a Session of Parliament but that he hath done some good deed for the King before it rose. I told him the passage Cocke told me of -- his having begged a brace of bucks of the Lord Arlington for him, and when it come to him, he sent it back again. Sir W. Coventry told me, it is much to be pitied that the King should lose the service of a man so able and faithful; and that he ought to be brought over, but that it is always observed, that by bringing over one discontented man, you raise up three in his room; which is a state lesson I never knew before. But when others discover your fear, and that discontent procures fear, they will be discontented too, and impose on you.

7th. To White Hall, where met by Sir W. Batten and Lord Brouncker, to attend the King and Duke of York at the Cabinet; but nobody had determined what to speak of, but only in general to ask for money. So I was forced immediately to prepare in my mind a method of discoursing. And anon we were called in to the Green Room, where the King, Duke of York, Prince Rupert, Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, Duke of Albemarle, Sirs G. Carteret, W. Coventry, Morrice. Nobody beginning, I did, and made a current, and I thought a good speech, laying open the ill state of the Navy: by the greatness of the debt; greatness of the work to do against next year; the time and materials it would take; and our incapacity, through a total want of money. I had no sooner done, but Prince Rupert rose up and told the King in a heat, that whatever the gentleman had said, he had brought home his fleet in as good a condition as ever any fleet was brought home; that twenty boats would be as many as the fleet would want: and all the anchors and cables left in the storm, might be taken up again. This arose from my saying, among other things we had to do, that the fleet was come in, -- the greatest fleet that ever his Majesty had yet together, and that in as bad condition as the enemy or weather could put it. And to use Sir W. Pen’s words, who is